Staff Picks
Charlotte It Happened One Summer
Tessa Bailey
Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father's dive bar in Washington. Piper hasn't even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won't last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can't do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be She's determined to show her stepfather and the hot, grumpy local that she's more than a pretty face.
Charlotte says: Need summer to be here and can't wait for June? Jump forward in time with It Happened One Summer, a contemporary romance with steam like a Houston July and an emotional center as sweet as ice cream.
Charlotte's Staff Picks
David The Once and Future Witches
Alix Harrow
In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote and perhaps not even to live the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive. There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.
David says: This story is set in the 1890s against the backdrop of the suffragette movement. I'm a big fan of alternate history fiction and the magic makes the book even better. A solid read all around
David's Staff Picks
Elizabeth An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies
Tyler Cowen
Food snobbery is killing entrepreneurship and innovation, says economist, preeminent social commentator, and maverick dining guide blogger Tyler Cowen. Americans are becoming angry that our agricultural practices have led to global warming-but while food snobs are right that local food tastes better, they're wrong that it is better for the environment, and they are wrong that cheap food is bad food. The food world needs to know that you don't have to spend more to eat healthy, green, exciting meals. At last, some good news from an economist! Tyler Cowen discusses everything from slow food to fast food, from agriculture to gourmet culture, from modernist cuisine to how to pick the best street vendor. He shows why airplane food is bad but airport food is good; why restaurants full of happy, attractive people serve mediocre meals; and why American food has improved as Americans drink more wine. And most important of all, he shows how to get good, cheap eats just about anywhere.
Elizabeth's Staff Picks
MeganBreakfast at Tiffany's
Truman Capote
Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm. This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, "House of Flowers," "A Diamond Guitar," and "A Christmas Memory,"
Megan says: Only Truman Capote could make me feel so nostalgic for a place and time I’ve never inhabited. We have all seen the iconic move, but have you read the book? No? Well, better late than never Darling.
Megan's Staff Picks
Nina All Shall Be Well
Deborah Crombie
Perhaps it is a blessing when Jasmine Dent dies in her sleep. At last an end has come to the suffering of a body horribly ravaged by disease. It may well have been suicide; she had certainly expressed her willingness to speed the inevitable. But small inconsistencies lead her neighbor, Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, to a startling conclusion: Dent was murdered. But if not for mercy, why would someone destroy a life already doomed? As Kincaid and his appealing assistant Sergeant Gemma James sift through the dead woman's strange history, a troubling puzzle emerges: a bizarre amalgam of charity and crime — and of the blinding passions that can drive the human animal to perform cruel and inhuman acts.
Nina says: A great book for those who like slower-paced mystery that focuses on character study as much as the whodunit.
Nina's Staff Picks
Raven Succession
A dysfunctional dynasty led by the aging and ailing Logan Roy, whose four grown children challenge his waning dominance while others in their orbit position themselves for the looming post-Logan world.
Raven says: A riveting tragicomedy with corporate set dressing: the Roy family and their hangers-on are the kind of villains you love to hate, equal parts pathetic and endearing. Trapped in their luxurious bubble of Purgatory, the Roys never really have control--least of all over themselves--despite their overwhelming wealth. It's a show that does irony both beautiful and cruel, managing to be nearly sexless yet endlessly profane. Recommended for anyone who enjoys dark comedy and watching characters suffer! (more like Arrested Development than King Lear, but filtered through the Decadent Movement)
Raven's Staff Picks
Reuben Poison for Breakfast
Lemony Snicket
This true story as true as Lemony Snicket himself begins with a puzzling note under his door: You had poison for breakfast. Following a winding trail of clues to solve the mystery of his own demise, Snicket takes us on a thought-provoking tour of his predilections: the proper way to prepare an egg, a perplexing idea called "tzimtzum," the sublime pleasure of swimming in open water, and much else.Poison for Breakfast is a classic-in-the-making that--in the great tradition of modern fables like The Little Prince and The Phantom Tollbooth will delight readers of all ages.
Reuben says: 1. You are a writer. 2. You solve mysteries. 3. You have been poisoned. 4. 5. You must solve the mystery of your untimely demise before time runs out. 6. 7. Oh, and probably write about it, too. (In case, you happen to survive. Or if you don't.) 8. But first things first, which is actually number 5. This is the fairly-short tale of Lemony Snicket's journey after discovering a note which states he has had poison for breakfast. It is a philosophical book, a confusing book, a humorous book, an enlightening book. It is a book.
Reuben's Staff Picks